


Fox (on the Run)

by cicadas



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Baby Groot, Crew as Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 01:42:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11864025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cicadas/pseuds/cicadas
Summary: He wants to say thank you, but doesn't. Can't.Gamora understands. She always does.





	Fox (on the Run)

They're in the cockpit. Rocket has Groot beside him, leaning against the secondary pilot's chair, flicking through the music on Quill's new player.

Gamora is rugged up in the Captain's chair, knees bent and feet reet tucked under her legs, a shawl draped around her body. She looked as if she could be sleeping, but Rocket knows she isn't. She's sitting, re-charging. Relishing the silence, the stars.

"I am Groot" Groot extends small vines from his hands in an attempt to grab the Zune, but Rocket yanks it back.

"I can do it," he says, finally finding the band _Sweet_ , the pads of his small fingers having slipped past it every time, and clicking on the song Groot has been wanting to hear for a while now. He had initially told Groot to do it himself, before realising that the sensor on the outdated rotator wheel didn't recognise his body as living, and refused to work. It needed something soft and squishy, Quill had said.

The song plays, and Rocket stares at the title as he hands Groot the earbuds.

_Fox on the Run._

It reminds him of Nebula.

She is like him, in ways. Made. A body filled with machinery, snide comments and dysfunction. He hopes he is less obvious about his pain than her, though. He wonders what the colour of her painkillers were, if she was ever given any.

She had called him a fox, more than once. He can't remember her ever calling him by his name, or even referring to him as a sentient person. Then again, had he done the same for her? Probably not. His whole crew, to him, is a bunch of nicknames and attributes.

They don't seem to mind.

Even as he ignored them, when they left for Ego's planet without him, Gamora had said to Nebula's smart mouth; "He's not a fox".

Gamora doesn't know what Rocket is. Hell, Rocket doesn't know what he is.

But she knows he is not an animal.

_"He's not a fox."_

"And I'm not a raboon, either" he had said to Groot, corrected for the fuck-up of his word immediately after, by Groot himself.

 

Rocket glances over to Gamora's still form.

Should he say something? Fucked if he's tossing a 'thank-you' out of nowhere.

As if sensing his stare, Gamora turns her head a little, first smiling at Groot, who is busy bobbing his head and legs as he sits on Rocket's knee, holding the earbuds up to the side of his head with both arms.

Then she turns to Rocket, and he does the only thing he can think of to outwardly express whatever-the-hell feelings are.

He nods.

Gamora smiles and nods back, all too understanding for any of their good, and with that she's back in her original postition, eyes closed, facing the stars above.

Groot stops his bopping to grin up at Rocket.

"I am Groot"

And the dancing comes back full force.


End file.
